Question 2TA.
When I talk about "systems change", what do I mean by "system"? People have asked me what I mean by systemic change work. Here are some examples (and I'm thinking of tying this into life being choice-making matter, and humans being capable of more complex conscious choices). 1. CHOICE DYNAMICS: Changing the ways that decisions/choices get made that impact our collective lives, including the factors that shape social behaviors and habits of thought and action (engrained choices). Among the factors here are political, governmental, and economic institutions, structures, processes, success criteria, and power relationships. It includes much of the taken-for-granted infrastructure of our lives -- from roads to money to media -- that provide information and guidance for personal decisions (which mode of transportation will I take, which product will I buy, who will I vote for, etc.) as well as institutional decisions (e.g., corporate decisions based on profit, legislative decisions based on lobbying, community decisions based on "jobs"). To follow this factor upstream, ask "Who made choices that led to this condition? Why and how were those choices made? What influenced those choices?" When you are dealing with systemic change, it is important to go beyond personal responsibility and blame -- although answerability SYSTEMS may be one of the factors you examine. Look for PATTERNS of choice in the issue or social realm you are exploring: Usually most people functioning in that place in the system will tend to make particular kinds of choices because of their systemic context. The systemic causes you want to understand are those factors that lead most people to behave in that way whenever they are at that point in the system. (Note: When you find people at that point in the system behaving noticeably better or worse, you can also ask why in order to gather hints about other factors you may want to work with. Looking at where people make better choices is the investigation of "positive deviance", which can suggest what to change to make more people make such positive choices -- which is a systemic change.) The quality of decision-making -- and the tools and conditions that lead to high or low quality decisions -- are a big part of this. What factors influence the ability of individuals and collectives to perceive what's real and important, to reflect intelligently, and to chose and act wisely? This can include technology, statistical information, various kinds of literacy, modes of interaction, ways to use diversity and disturbance creatively, etc. 2. FEEDBACK AND FLOW DYNAMICS: Societal health and learning depend on how outputs from one place or time become inputs in another place and time. Reinforcing ("positive") feedback dynamics are valuable for magnifying creativity in a system, but they can also magnify unhealthy or destructive factors or spin the system into a death spiral. Balancing ("negative") feedback dynamics sustain a system's health and positive attributes, but can also deaden vitality and creativity. Furthermore, in general, flows of information, material, energy, money, power, etc., can be too fast or too slow or totally stuck or missing or too one-way (e.g., top-down, non-interactive) or incomplete (e.g., generating waste instead of recycling, or failure instead of learning) or conflicted or wrong vibration, etc. Learning, in particular, requires that information about results cleanly circulate back into reflections and conversations about what will happen next. Elections and market forces are powerful balancing feedback loops (making sure that undesirable politicians, products, companies, etc., get weeded out) -- but only if the needed information and feedback mechanics are in place. 3. CULTURAL STORIES: The stories we tell ourselves and each other about what is good and bad, what is possible and impossible, what is real and unreal, who we are and what we are doing here.